Drew McManus on the orchestra business.
One of the unique byproducts of having an archive with nearly 4,000 articles over 16 years is you tend to write about most topics and organizations at least once. In some cases, a lot more than once. One such example is the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (BSO). The BSO has appeared in no less than 36 articles as far back as 2003 (37, if you count today’s post). Since they’re headed toward …
If you’re a data nerd then you almost certainly know about FiveThirtyEight.com, statistician Nate Silver’s number-crunching hub of data goodness. Recently, they posted a personality quiz that purports to deliver results that produce quantifiably meaningful results. In addition to taking the quiz as an individual, it’s designed to allow users to add their score to a predefined peer group. To that end, I am all kinds of curious to see how …
My web development agency is currently putting together the promotional website for George S. Clinton’s new violin concerto, The Rose of Sonora, written for violinist Holly Mulcahy. We’ve been talking about the different user profiles of site visitors and one of those groups is what I call “artistic deciders.” This includes anyone responsible for programming, such as conductors, CEOs/Executive Directors, and VPs/Directors of Artistic Administration. While I’ve talked to a number …
While I am all kinds of happy to see service organizations and foundations allocate increased resources to addressing meaning change on issues related to diversity, it still feels a bit like trying to catch up by going slower. All the planned efforts are excellent; providing mentoring, audition prep, financial support, and highlighting minority musicians to potential employers are necessary programs. At the same time, there are options capable of catapulting the …
The notorious @ArtsAdminSay Twitter account has been on a tear as of late and is leaving swath of dark humor destruction in its path. In case you ever wondered if it was possible to laugh and simultaneously have a little part of you die on the inside, the answer is yes…yes it is. Be sure to read the replies. Marketing: We had 500 brand new households purchase tickets for our last …